D95: Project Based Learning

AP CSA

Another lab day working on the customer lab.  A student toldl me that they are getting it now!  They went back to work on the Structured Lab and it was really “clicking” for them. 

Half the class was gone for the AMC test but it was good to sit with students as they worked.

AP CSP

I am making stage 13 homework for students.  It is SO scaffolded, I think they can do it at home and watching them do it is a bit painful. 

I made a project inspired by a project a former student made.  Students needed to make a hangman game.  I demoed the former students’ project in class, but I probably wouldn’t do that again – students just copied the format she had.  I think the major win in the task was asking students to give it a “theme”.   Here is the copy of the task.

My goal in doing this task was to get students to see the use of an array.  BUT I think some side-benefits are also coming out.

• I wanted to shift more time to planning out student work.  I have learned that I don't do enough of this after being observed and also after attending my grad class, AND conferences this week, I am realizing forcing students to spend more time planning is a good thing. 
• Using substring methods.  I thought students got this in the Movie Bot lab, but that knowledge is clearly stale now. 
• AP test practice! I am having students create an algorithm with two other algorithms inside it.  We will be writing about this too. 

Concepts

Energy was high - too high, today in concepts.  We did the "Price is Right" expected value problem today.  I suppose we didn't calculate the "expected value" but we did calculate what the individual should do or not do in the situation.  It was a good "intro" to probability activity, I would do it again for sure.  

The second half of class we continued on the "fair hopper" activity.  I asked students to design their own "Fair Hopper" which some students put some real time into and others' did not.   It would be good to hold students more accountable to these activities.  

One Good Thing
A student teacher in the building came to observe me today in concepts.  It is always so great to get a fresh perspective on my classroom.  She sent me some of her notes afterwards which was actually affirming.  Sometimes I feel like my list of classes to teach is too long this year, but her notes re-affirmed that some of the "teacher moves" I have worked hard to develop have become instincts.  Things like writing all the answers on the board that students give - even the wrong ones, and making students justify their thinking were things she noticed.  I am glad those were apparent and to be honest, I don't necessarily THINK about doing those things any more, it is just more natural.